How this London cartoonist imagines kindergarten during the pandemic

Brenda Fuhrman was inspired to draw the outlandlish back-to-school scenarios by her friend, a kindergarten teacher.

"The idea was from a sincere source," said Fuhrman, 72. "He was concerned about how he's going to keep his students safe. He couldn't think of how his students, who love to hug each other and hug him, how would they do it?"

Fuhrman hopes her comics will get people thinking. 

"Putting them in a different form, in a cartoon, it's just another way of communicating and taking away that it might be difficult for really young children in school to distance," she said.

"If you can even take that away from what I've drawn, maybe then better solutions will come of it."

From nurse to lawyer to cartoonist

Fuhrman, who spent 30 years as a nurse, has reinvented herself more than once, first becoming a lawyer and last year graduating with a fine arts degree from Western University. 

"I like to learn," she said. "I like the idea that you can augment your life, or make your life larger by knowing more about things."

Last year, Fuhrman was instrumental in launching an all-female London comic collective called Comic Time. The group produced six publications before it was disrupted by Covid-19.

All-female comic collective

Art teacher and Comic Time member, Jacqueline Demendeev, 26, said the group is about connecting with other cartoonists.

"Comics can be a really isolating practice," she said.

"It's really awesome to be able to occasionally connect with this group and not only make work out of a collaborative group but also...to open up a conversation to all Londoners by sharing our art about what it means to live here."

Demendeev discovered comics on her commute home during her time at Western University. "I also discovered that London and southwestern Ontario is a hotbed for amazing cartoonists."

Indeed, the region is known from some pretty big names in the industry, from Seth to Scott Chantler to Merle Tingley.

The Comic Time artists have been meeting virtually during the pandemic and hope to release another issue in the next few months,

"They're kind of like art Easter eggs. We drop them all over the city and we leave them in cafes, at the library, on the LTC and anywhere else where people live and play downtown. So it's discoverable art," said Demendeev.